Silence of the dice

A diceless GM emulator for solo or no-prep gaming.

I read Silence of the Lambs at an impressionable age. I find Hannibal Lector fascinating. Not as a killer, but for his disciplined mind. There's a scene in the book where the FBI need information from him, so they strap him into a straightjacket and bite mask and simply wait... believing he'll tell them what they want to know rather than endure the discomfort indefinitely. Instead, he waits them out and uses the time to think about a favourite piece of music.

Whenever I read about a technique or rule for solo role-playing I ask myself, could Hannibal Lector use this as a distraction during his interrogation? Could I use it while waiting in line to renew my driver's license? (I have a terrible habit of letting my phone battery run down completely before I think about charging it.) What's the minimum amount of equipment you need to run an RPG, anyway? We can eliminate dice. Can we eliminate char sheets, note paper and pencils too?

The first thing you need is a randomiser and for the games I want to play, numbers are still the best. Just thinking of a number won't work. Even if you can be objective and not pick a number that favours your character, figures from your own mind will never be random. I like mathematician George Marsaglia's. It's pseudorandom rather than truly random, but the pattern is complex enough that you'd need to be a savant to predict it without a tool like a spreadsheet. The method goes like this:

1. Think of a 2-digit 'seed' number.
2. Multiply the second digit by 6 and add it to the first number.
3. Use the right-most digit of the new number as your random number.
4. Keep going from the previous 2-digit number as long as you need new random numbers.

Example:

1. Our seed number is 23.
2. The new number is 2 added to the result of 6 x 3.
3. The result is 20. Our random number is the right-most digit, 0. (I'd take this as 10.)

Our next random number would be 2 + (6 x 0) = 2. From there: 2, 3, 9, 6, 9, 5, etc. If I wanted this to be a d20, I'd add 10 if the first digit is odd. The 2-digit number's range is 1 - 59, so the first digit makes a pretty good d6.

D12: Use the first digit, add 6 if the second is odd.
D4: Get a D12 result, divide by 4 and use the remainder.
D8: Use the process for a D4, then generate another random number. If it's odd, add 4 to your D4 result. The extra steps for these two are both annoying enough that I probably won't use them.

Note: I originally posted that you can get a D8 result by dividing a D12 result by 8 and using the remainder - which is obviously wrong, because 12 is not divisible by 8.

None of these results are truly representative of a fair die, but they're fair enough for my purposes. (Would this work at a table? Only if you had uniquely patient players.)

You also need a way to figure out what happens. I've had good results using the Mythic GM emulator, but it's too involved to keep it all in my head. Instead, I assign a number out of ten for the likelihood of something happening - 7/10 for likely, 3/10 for unlikely, 5/10 if I really don't know. If I roll equal or below the number, it's a positive result. If I roll a 1 or a 10, it's a critical result, which translates to some kind of extreme version of the expected outcome.

The way the randomiser's maths works out, there's a 1/8 chance of the two digits being a double - 11, 22, 33, etc. If I get a double, the unexpected happens.

I also need to determine what happens. For that I'm using a simple system of elemental associations -

Rolling a d12 on this table will give me an action, a faction or a personal quality. It's up to me to interpret what that means for my game. I think it's a good rule of thumb to relate it back to a detail already in the game. If I know a specific faction is involved, I can interpret an answer to mean that particular faction is taking action or displaying a quality.

So far so simple. I can remember these things without consulting a rulebook. But if I want to go completely diceless, I need to pick the right game as well. Dice pool systems are out. In Shadowrun, our tank routinely rolls three dozen dice to soak damage. Exalted pools can get even larger. Even percentile or 2d6 systems are going to be annoying, so I'm probably looking at something D&D-ish. 

I've had good results testing with a modified version of Here Is Some Fucking D&D by redditor dm_magic.  (Clean version available here.) I discard AC scores and add the opponents movement rate to an attack roll, with a target of 20. I also drop the damage roll and have weapons do full damage on a it.

Long term, I might opt for something even simpler, like Tales of Mordhearse by unwashedmendicant. Characters get one stat and a few simple qualities.